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Liam Williams will leave Saracens for a return to Wales next season - reports
By Online Editors
Local media in Wales are claiming that Scarlets have won the race to sign Saracens’ Liam Williams while Ospreys are said to be in pole position to nab Dragons’ Ross Moriarty.
A move for Wales international Williams had long been speculated on, particularly in the wake of Saracens signing England back three player Elliot Daly.
The London club have had salary cap issues, being fined £5.4million and getting deducted 35 Premiership points for breaches the last three seasons. They are now also being closely monitored to ensure they meet the criteria for this season.
That pressure has seemingly created the situation that walesonline.co.uk claim Scarlets will now profit from as they are said to have secured Williams' signature for next term on a deal worth £400,000 a year.
Williams, who left Scarlets after their 2017 PRO12 title win, had also been linked with Ospreys and Toulon. He will now become fully available again for all Wales duty when he arrives at Scarlets, unlike the current situation where his employment by an English club can restrict his availability in training weeks.
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Moriarty, meanwhile, is said to likely be heading to Swansea rather than take up alleged offers in England and France.
Dragons are suffering from an embarrassment of riches in their back row with the emergence of talent such as Aaron Wainwright, Ollie Griffiths and Taine Basham, and Moriarty has yet to play for them this season.
Rather than keep a costly Test player on their books - Welsh media put his salary at £450,000 a year in an independently financed deal - it’s said Dragons would be inclined not to keep him and instead allow their Welsh rivals tempt him west.
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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